Your 5-Step Plan to Modern PR Measurement

Modern PR practices evolve to adapt to changes happening in the digital world. For a while, advertising value equivalency (AVE) was a must-have PR metric. But now, PR professionals are kicking AVE and other soft metrics to the curb.

Today, PR professionals and practitioners believe measurement should provide concrete data on how well you can engage with influencers on social media, communicate stories to reporters and more. The key is to focus on metrics that show who’s talking and what they’re saying, rather than the dollar-to-media coverage ratio.

Align your brand’s PR strategy with long-term business objectives by following this five-step plan for modern PR measurement.

1. Pinpoint Your Objectives

To start, envision what you want to establish and then work backwards. Decide what it is you want to do and why it’s important.

2. Determine Your Metrics

Every brand is different. Establish metrics based on where you are with your PR strategy. If you are entering a new market, for example, it would be wise to focus on awareness. Move onto more specific metrics once you’ve covered awareness and education.

3. Grow Your Budget

Need more resources to accomplish your overall goals? It starts by measuring a single campaign. Once you’ve gathered and analyzed enough data, ask for a budget increase to keep measuring your metrics.

4. Get Everyone on Board

Make friends with your IT team. They’ll know what infrastructure to use, provide you with data management tips, and help you maintain a consistent data process. Share relevant results with other departments like customer service and marketing where you can.

5. Track and Respond

Use data to demonstrate key moments in your brand’s history. Benchmark against the past to develop campaigns for the future. Monitor ongoing conversations, analyze the campaign’s impact on your brand’s audience and reassess specific details according to what you’ve found.

Subscribe to the Cision Blog

Katie Gaab is a content marketing specialist for Cision. Previously the senior editor for Help A Reporter Out (HARO), she enjoys connecting audiences to exciting, new content. She's a dancer, avid concert-goer, foreign language nerd and book worm. Find her on Twitter @kathryngaab.